A particularly advantageous application of the invention lies in establishing two-way links in any field where concepts of electrical or optical multiplexing are too expensive compared with a solution comprising two monomode optical fibers, and in particular in the field of conventional telecommunications for connecting subscriber lines.
At present, a technique for connecting multiple optical fibers is known from the Japanese publication by S. Nagasawa in IEE Photonics, Vol. 3, No. 10, Oct. 1991, which technique consists in a highly accurate factory step of prepositioning said optical fibers to be connected in respective coupling sleeves by means of a mechanical centering system, in taking two identical coupling sleeves each including respective accurately-positioned fibers to be connected, and then in accurately positioning the two coupling sleeves facing each other in such a manner that said optical fibers are in exact alignment, after which an overmolding operation is performed on both facing sleeves together.
That Japanese technique including an overmolding operation performed in a factory suffers from the drawback of using technological means that are unsuitable for implementing on a worksite.